We halved our game total in one fell swoop. See what upsets happened, what series have the most left, and what trends can be drawn from Mario spinoff voting.
Round one is in the books. 64 games entered, and 32 left. Note to self: putting up 32 polls on Twitter sucks. The first round was mostly chalk, but a few upsets shined a light on a trend that is interesting. If you want to cut to the chase, the updated brackets are attached and the votes for round two are below. But for now: stats!
- Biggest margin of victory: Mario Kart 8 trounced Mario Party: The Top 100 95%-5%. The 2014 Wii U game was probably only a second seed because somebody gave it a 7.5 back in the day. The other single digits percentages were: Super Mario RPG (91%) over Mario Party: Star Rush (9%) and Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (94%) over Mario Sports Superstars (6%). Of note, The Super Circuit bracket had two of those dominant games (Mario Kart 8, Super Mario RPG), alongside two other games (Mario Kart Super Circuit and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door) with 80%+ victories.
- Closest match-ups: Super Mario Party held off Mario Superstar Baseball 51% to 49%. Sure, Paper Mario will likely cream Super Mario Party, but Super Mario Party will always have the first round.
- Upsets: Mario Super Sluggers (12 seed) has survived two rounds already and they came in hard against Mario Golf Advance Tour, winning 56% to 44%. Other upsets included Mario Party 3 (10 seed) over Mario Tennis (GBC), Mario Party 6 (11 seed) over Mario Tennis Power Tour, and Mario Party 2 (9 seed) over Mario Golf: World Tour.
- Big takeaway: Read over the list of the upsets. Every single upset was a portable Mario sports game. What happened to the good will of those games?
- Most dominant series: Let's be honest - this is going to be RPGs vs. Kart. Every Mario Kart game won their first match-up (well, except Mario Kart Tour) and the only Mario RPGs that didn't make the cut are Paper Mario: Sticker Star (good riddance) and Paper Mario: Color Splash (a damn shame). More than half of the remaining games can be tied to the racing or RPG genre.
- Big second round match-ups: Two stand out as major at this stage. Mario Kart Wii vs. Super Mario RPG and Mario Kart 64 vs. Super Paper Mario. The oddsmakers put Super Mario RPG and Mario Kart 64 as the favorites, but even Mario Kart Wii or Super Paper Mario put up a strong fight and possibly win, it might portend the viability of the Kart or RPG series going forward. Captain Toad vs. Super Mario Kart is a real "old vs. new" battle. Captain Toad could be a contender, but can the original Mario Kart knock it out now? Lastly, every Mario Party enters this round an underdog. Can any of them survive? We have Mario Party (vs. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga), Mario Party 2 (vs. Mario Tennis 64), Mario Party 3 (vs. Mario Kart 8), and Mario Party 6 (vs. Mario Kart: Double Dash!!) still left.
It's time for round 2 of the Mario Spinoff Madness Tournament. Vote for all of the remaining match-ups in this thread. https://t.co/zPnnyaArCF pic.twitter.com/pfdm9TG6YB
— Nintendo World Report (@Nintendo_NWR) April 17, 2020